


The shiver when you talk to me, the rigour in our smile

by Lady_Michiru



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Johnny's Jr., SixTONES (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Tanaka Koki leaving the Agency. Wishful thinking and feels about a 6Tones future debut., Romance-ish, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Michiru/pseuds/Lady_Michiru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words are complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The shiver when you talk to me, the rigour in our smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dusk037](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dusk037/gifts).



> Originally written for the Je-Wakamono Exchange [here](http://je-wakamono.livejournal.com/13708.html).
> 
> I love you. I wish I could have written you a better fic. But I love you. This was supposed to be a _Five times…_ fic, but I fail at life. Title and subtitles shamelessly stolen from Butcher Boy’s lyrics.

_Four. [Tattooing tears on my cheek to show how much they mean]_

Rumours start days before the actual announce of Koki’s departure, as usual. And it’s been just a couple of hours, but Juri’s already getting sick of the sideway glances and the sudden stops in conversations whenever he shows up. Tired of the whispers behind his back.

He dodges into one of the supply rooms to catch his breath; rests his back against the door and massages his jaw, tight and aching from hours of fake smiles.

Juri lets his body slide down, slowly, into a crouch; rest his arms over his knees and his head on his forearms. He breathes, just breathes. He wishes he could disappear.

He is tired, lost in a strange place in-between awake and asleep, blocking out reality so much he doesn’t even startle when there’s a knock on the door.

“Juri? Open the door, I know you are there.”

Juri evaluates for a second whether or not to acknowledge the person on the other side, but something pulls at him and he is half rolling half crawling away from the door before his brain can really process it all and reach a conclusion.

And then, Shintaro is there. Openly worried and looking at Juri in the eye.

“Are you alright?” Shintaro asks, and then he says “I heard.” And it’s such a change from all the whispers and fleeting pitying looks he’s been getting since this whole thing began, that all he can feel is relief, and he can’t help but sigh and chuckle.

“Yeah… well… ” Juri begins, but he doesn’t really want to talk, so he shrugs. “You know…”

“I know,” Shintaro says then, and grabs Juri’s shoulder.

There’s is not too much space here, in this room that is really a glorified closet, and Juri is very aware of Shintaro’s intrusion into his personal space, and this should definitely feel weirder than it does; but Shintaro’s warmth is comforting and familiar, nice in is openness, and Shintaro’s understanding eyes are solace, even if Juri didn’t really know he needed it. Because Shintaro cares, and he indeed _knows_.

“Thanks...” Juri whispers when Shintaro hugs him, awkward and clumsy, and comforting as hell.

“I have… new manga… at home… if you want to read them…” Shintaro’s offer is as clumsy as his hug, but his meaning is clear: _it’s okay not to talk about it_.

Juri nods. At the moment any plan involving not talking and probably not thinking about this sounds like an excellent plan; but he keeps hanging onto Shintaro anyway. He hasn’t feel this kind of peace since the whole thing began, weeks ago for him and his mother, and Shintaro just stays there, doesn’t get uncomfortable, doesn’t wiggle out, doesn’t make it weird in any way.

Because Shintaro gets it. He really _gets it_. And Juri just didn’t know this was the only thing he needed, until now.

 

_**Three.** [ I wear the days and hours like a badge of war]_

“I wish I could just dance and not sing. Ever again”, Shintaro huffs, flopping down besides Juri with a grunt and frown on his face.

It’s not the first time Juri has heard this. It won’t be the last. Shintaro has been complaining about his voice ever since Juri entered the Agency and met this tiny boy who looked a thousand times more confident than anyone around him, but kept complaining about not singing well.

“You have not changed at all”, Juri lets out, half chuckle, half sigh.

And it takes him some time to notice the way his words hang there, still in the air between him and Shintaro by his side, strangely silent in the middle of the rehearsal room and all the turmoil around them.  
  
Shintaro is making that face, like he doesn't really understand what Juri is saying but he doesn't like it all the same, even if he does not know exactly why.

“I mean… you are the same Morimoto Shintaro I met when I was twelve”. Juri tries to explain. He feels an urgent need to appease Shintaro, to somehow wash the confused frown off his face, but his words just seem to make it worse. “You haven’t... changed...”  
  
"I'm taller now," Shintaro says, after the longest pause in history; but it is not what he means.

Shintaro doesn't know exactly what he means, not really, but at least he is sure that it wasn’t what he just said. Maybe.  
  
It has been years, after all. Okay, he _is_ taller than he was back then, but Shintaro also thinks he is not the same kid he was at nine years old, when he first stepped into the madness of the Agency , ready to conquer this world, to make it his. And he met Juri not too long after that.

 _I’m better now_ , it’s maybe what Shintaro wants to say. _I’m older_. But for some reason he wants juri to notice it, he wants Juri to think of the words and articulate them. He doesn’t want to force Juri to say it, because he wants Juri to really _feel it_. And that confuses him. A lot.

“And if you keep eating the way you do, you’ll not only be taller but fatter as well”, Juri tries to joke, and even manages to smile in spite of the ghost reverberations of his words that scream _fake_ like it was written in glitter all over him.

What Juri really meant was that he was glad that Shintaro’s essence had remained unchanged, through the good days and the bad days, withstanding the limelight that could have spoiled him rotten. He has always been Shintaro, and Juri treasures him.

But just the thought of voicing it makes Juri feel weird.

Shintaro stares at him, looking lost and maybe a little hurt; but neither of them knows how to break the wall of silence they just created.

 

_**Two.** [I keep your shadows with mine to stoop and stutter by]_

“Break my WII U and I’ll break your soul”.

Shintaro would roll his eyes at his brother’s drama display, but he is way too invested in drowning his confusion down by trying to save Hyrule… and failing.

“It’s a stupid game,” Shintaro says instead, and he would gladly throw the control away, but an angry Ryutaro is a force of nature he has come to respect.

“Hey! Hey! Don’t blame Hyrule Warriors for your petty love sickness!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about...” Shintaro retorts, but it lacks drive. Because Shintaro’s brother’s words mostly feel like when you scratch really near to the source of an itch you previously couldn’t isolate and has been bothering you for hours; it feels like the second just before a revelation. But the revelation never comes and the itch is still there and Shitaro wants to punch something. “I’m not in love”, Shintaro huffs, but it sounds like he is trying to convince himself of it, and rather unsuccessfully.

“Oh, gods…” Ryutaro grimaces as he looks at Shintaro. “This is Yamada and Nakajima all over again and I’m _not_ having this conversation with you!”

“It’s not like that!” Shintaro yells at his brother, who is very maturely covering his ears with his hands.

“If it was that Maika girl you would be hiding purikura on your bedside table and not here, messing with _my_ videogames and insulting Zelda.”

“You. Are. Gross.” Shintaro growls, making a big show of stomping out of Ryutaro’s bedroom.

“Whoever he is… it’s not a big deal, you know?”

Shintaro hears his brother’s voice and stops, but he doesn’t look back.

“Just… “ Ryutaro clears his throat, and he sounds clearly uncomfortable, struggling to force every word pass the cloud of embarrassment of having man-to-man talks with his younger brother. “It’s normal to care. To feel… things. And just… just solve it. Tell him. You are dumb, but I don’t think you’d fall for an asshole… maybe”. Ryutaro pauses, and Shintaro almost keeps walking but he is suddenly interrupted by his brother’s final words on the matter. “Don’t be moping around and being a emo-ass to your coworkers for too long, _please_. It gets really old, really fast”.

Shintaro considers turning around to check if Ryutaro’s face matches the shell-shocked tone of his voice, but instead he chooses to run away to the safety of his own room.

Confusion was hard, but certainty is proving to be worse for the moment, and Shintaro is scared.

 

_**One.** [It's hard to show how much this means when secretly I only want to feel]_

They are sitting in the deserted breakroom, just Juri and Shintaro, eating a late lunch after the long hours of practice they needed to sync a very tricky part of the choreography. The rest of 6Tones are nowhere to be seen. Juri doesn’t want to ask.

“Hokuto is afraid of spiders”, Shintaro says, out of nowhere.

Juri stares at Shintaro, lifting both of his eyebrows in an inquisitive way, waiting for an explanation that never comes. After a while, he swallows the mouthful of rice he had shoved into his mouth before Shintaro’s statement and takes a sip of orange juice.

“Hokuto is afraid of everything”, Juri says, matter-of-factly, clearing his throat when a drop of orange juice decides to rebel on its way down. Lately, every one of Juri’s processes seem rebel a bit every time Shintaro is near, but he doesn’t particularly want to think about it.

“I’m not”, Shintaro beams, looking radiantly proud about something.

Juri frowns. “You are not… afraid of spiders…?” Juri is getting lost really quickly in this conversation and is torn between his wish that someone comes and interrupts it and his ever growing delight at having Shintaro’s attention all for himself.

“I’m not afraid of _anything_ ”, Shinaro declares, and grins. Perfect white and soft looking lips, and the warmth in Juri’s cheeks is becoming more and more familiar these days.

“You don’t like ants”, Juri retorts, and shoves the last spoonful of rice into his mouth, desperately trying to get his cool back.

“No, but I am not _afraid_ of them”. Shintaro is looking straight at Juri’s eyes, all intensity and some deep meaning there that Juri can’t decipher.

Or doesn’t want to decipher.

Because he really doesn't want to think about the blush on Shintaro’s face or his bright eyes and the way they make Juri’s heart want to jump off his chest through his mouth. Juri really doesn’t want to consider what he _wants_ Shintaro to mean by telling him that he is not afraid of anything.

Juri breaks their visual contact, looks intently at the empty container of his combini lunch, and wishes he knew what to say. Wishes that words weren’t so complicated.

The awkward silence is interrupted some minutes later, by a high pitched scream coming from one of the adjacent dressing rooms. Hokuto’s scream.

“What do you think? Spider or mantis?” Juri says in the lightest tone he can muster, trying not to stare too long at Shintaro’s face, even if he kind of wants to figure out if there’s indeed some disappointment in it expression or it’s just Juri’s mind playing tricks on him.

“I hope it’s a snake,” Shintaro grumbles, but stands up and follows Juri towards the source of the sound. “And I _really_ hope whoever is with Hokku this time has his clothes on, men”.

Juri can feel the aggravated scowl in Shintaro’s voice without need to see it. He shakes his head and chuckles, half relieved and half frustrated, and all along scared as hell.

 

_**Zero.** [Clockwork]_

They don’t get a warning, even though later Taiga will say he had this feeling it was going to happen today, but he didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. As it is, it takes them by surprise. The six of them.

Shintaro has seen this happen, the way the members of a unit react when they are told this kind of thing in the middle of a concert, out of nowhere. He always though it all was an act, fake reactions; that they knew beforehand and had to pretend to be shocked, and surprised and then celebrate as loudly as they could.

But here he is. And there’s not an iota of fake shock on his system, and the tears that flood his eyes are every bit as real as the overwhelming feeling that his heart is going to explode from sheer happiness. And the only thing he wants to do is yell, jump, and maybe backflip, just because he _can_.

They are going to debut.

Hokuto is rolling on the floor in a tangled web made of Jesse’s and Yugo’s legs and arms, and Shintaro hopes that the tiny baby Junior -dressed up as medieval herald- that read the announcement from a scroll, doesn’t get too traumatized by the view.

Taiga is crying and jumping around aimlessly, like a bunny on sugar high, screeching so loud that Shintaro has to cover his ears for a while.

Shintaro, himself, is still shocked, frozen, unable to force his vocal cords to make any sound. But then he feels Juri, at his side.

Juri’s face is wet and stained with tears, but he is smiling, that big ecstatic smile than makes Juri’s eyes disappear in the wrinkles around them. He is not jumping, he is just there, beside Shintaro. And there's’ no one else in the world Shintaro wants more by his side than Juri right now.

They reach out for each other at the same time, and their hug is rough, almost painful, full of joy and wonder and _life_ riding their blood in earnest. Shintaro’s unshed tears flow down his cheeks without his permission but it doesn’t matter, nothing else matters.

“We are going to be together”, Shintaro sobs into Juri’s hair. And it hits him, real and hard, and bright. _They are going to be together_.

“Forever”, Juri gasps, backing out a bit. He takes Shintaro’s face into his hands and softly bends him down to plant a kiss on Shintaro’s forehead.

Screams from all the fangirls in the venue wash over them like a raging tsunami made of hysteria, but Shintaro couldn’t care less.

He wants to say many things, “I like you”, is one of them. But words are complicated and uncooperative. And then Shintaro looks into Juri’s eyes, and decides that maybe words are overrated after all.

Juri takes Shintaro’s hand, hidden from the view of the audience by both of their bodies, and links their fingers, squeezes them hard. “I…” He begins, but Shintaro shakes his head, interrupts him.

Because he knows.

So he nods, and Juri finally understands, and his eyes explode in a nova of light that Shintaro feels can swallow both of them.

They hug again, and some of the girls sound like they are dying, but Shintaro doesn’t care one bit. And when he feels Juri’s arms circling his waist and squeezing him back, he knows they are both on the same page.

And to hell with words.


End file.
